Getting CableCard for your Windows Media Center? Well, plan on a few possible "bumps" in the process as its not always the easiest install in the world. CEPro has pointed out a great Digital Cable Tuner Diagnostics tool that will be shown off at the Electronic House Expo next week.
If you're interested, read more at CEPro
It's been another busy week at GeekTonic. We've been putting the Kindle2 through the paces, and trying out lots of new HTPC stuff. In case you missed anything from the past week, here is a summary of the past week's news and stories on GeekTonic.
Check out the GeekTonic Media Gadget Showcase - Be sure and sign up for the Gadget Showcase at GeekTonic. Get started by joining the GeekTonic Flickr Group and adding photos of your media gadgets and Media Setup photos for a chance to win Amazon Gift Certificates and more.
Phew! So that's a wrap for this week.
The open source media center app, Elisa Media Center has been available for Linux for a while now. This week they pushed out an update of Elisa Version 0.5.30 to allow the app to run on Windows as well.
The Elisa media center program has the familiar HTPC functions such as music, movies and photos as well as many plugins for online media such as Shoutcast, YouTube, Flickr and Yes fm.
Here's a video of the Elisa HTPC software being controlled with a Wii Remote Control.
The interface reminds me of Front Row for Apple. Pretty cool and it's free so worth checking out.
The Boxee team pushed out a new version of the popular Home Theater PC (HTPC) software, Boxee today. This version includes an "App Box" which is their version of an Application Store, an RSS reader optimized ofr video feeds such as Hulu, Google Video, YouTube and many others, and finally an auto-update feature. The update is for the Mac, AppleTV and Windows versions with a Linux update planned for a later date.
The bad news is that they have again met with Hulu representatives and the result was disappointing to say the least. Here's what the Boxee team said on their blog today:
There is also an update with regards to our meetings with Hulu and their content providers below. Sadly, they weren't ready to work with us yet. When they are, we look forward to bringing a more robust version of the Hulu application back to boxee with their help.
If it wasn't obvious before, it should be now - Hulu has no intention of working with or even allowing third parties to create an alternative interface or allow the viewing of Hulu on a TV (via HTPC). Its extremely unfortunate that the industry isn't ready to evolve the TV viewing experience in this way, but they're obviously trying to protect the control and more importantly revenue stream they have with their current agreements with cable and satellite companies.
Now for the "better" news. Given Hulu's resistance to the Boxee, Hulu viewer on the older version, Boxee has made the decision to include RSS feeds instead - and those RSS feeds include Hulu content. So while it definitely isn't as attractive or robust as the Hulu Application that was "turned off", you can still browse and view Hulu content on Boxee. Based on this decision, I'm guessing Hulu's main "beef" with the Boxee app was in the way they presented it. If we see Hulu turn off the RSS feeds from their site, we'll know it was more then that.
Below is a screen-shot of the Hulu RSS Feeds page:
It will be interesting to see what kind of applications end up in the App Store.The App Box shows up in the main menu of Boxee:
The last thing added to this version was the auto-update. This means users can update their Boxee software within the software itself without exiting Boxee.
If you had any doubt whether electronic books were moving in on the traditional paper book you only have to look to the announcement by Barnes and Noble yesterday that they've acquired Fictionwise, the operator of popular eBook stores Fictionwise.com and eReader.com. What is Barnes and Noble up to you ask? You guessed it, they will be launching their own eBook store sometime this year.
Barnes and Noble is obviously moving towards eBooks as a move to keep up with Amazon.com and their Kindle eBook product. Fictionwise.com and eReader.com are both great eBook stores so keep your eyes on this one. I'm betting Amazon is in for a fight and the result should provide a great opportunity for consumers to see some significant price drops in eBook Readers. Ten years from now we'll be laughing at how so many people "didn't get" the move towards e-Books in the 2000's.
Fictionwise is one of the most popular independent sellers of eBooks. They support Palm, PocketPC, HieBook, Mobipocket, eBookMan, Adobe, MS Reader and WinCE. And yes, you can use these books on the Amazon Kindle and view the books in Windows and Mac via a free eReader software they provide.
Are you a Vista Media Center user and a sports fan? If so Microsoft just announced the perfect online video channel for you. Today, Microsoft is taking live the new Sports Channel for Windows Media Center. The channel offeres a wide range of on-demand sports coverage from CBSSports.com, Fox Sports, MSNBC.com and more. You'll find breaking sports news, player interviews, fantasy sports tracking and more. The addition of CBSSports makes the offering an interesting one given the upcoming March Madness NCAA sports coverage.
To check out the new Sports Channel, launch Windows Media Center, scroll down to "Sports" and click on the Sports Channel tile.
According to Microsoft's blog, here's some content you can expect on this channel during March Madness:
Sounds like a good use of online content by Microsoft. Lets hope they continue down this path.
Our first submission for the GeekTonic Media Gadget Showcase Series is an HTPC build by Sodarkangel. He was on twitter talking about his setup so I asked if he'd be willing to share it on Geektonic.
NOTE: This is a guest post by sodarkangel. This is the first in the GeekTonic Media Gadget Showcase Series. To read more about how to submit your photos and/or writeups for this series, read this.
I decided a while ago I needed to build a new Home Theater PC (HTPC). The problem was, Windows 7 was so far away but I couldn't even play HD files on the old one. I bought a new TV a few weeks ago, a Samsung LN52A850, which I'm extremely happy with. The new TV spurred the need for something new, so I said screw it, and pieced out my new HTPC and built it.
Parts:
HTPC Case: Lian Li PC-C32B
I chose this case because it was pretty and had a very good design for being a very very quiet pc.
Motherboard: Asus P5Q-EM
I liked this motherboard because the onboard video not only had hardware HD decoding, but it also had an onboard HDMI port (no more DVI-HDMI, but I use speakers plugged into the PC for now)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750
This processor was in my main pc, I upgraded it to a Core 2 Quad.
CPU Cooler: Scythe Ninja Mini
Great heat spreading, and I didn't need to put a fan on it.
PSU: Sparkle R-SPI600GLN
Ample power, nice design (unfortunately not modular), but very power conservative.
Memory: G.Skill 4GB (2x2GB)
I choose G.Skill because I've had nothing but great experiences with them, and I work with a lot of PCs at work.
Hard Drive: WD Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB
Nice and big, and an attempt at low power consumption.
TV Tuners: 2 Hauppauge 2250 cards (pci express)
I chose this card because it takes 1 cable line, and splits it into 2, and each has 2 hybrid tuners, so I have 4 total tuners capable of both HD or Analog.
I had a DVD-RW drive already for it from my main PC, and put a blu-ray in that, because we already have a Blu-Ray player.
The build was simple, I had to monitor heat to make sure it wasn't getting too hot without having a CPU fan, but it was fine, and VERY quiet. I was very happy with the main build.
The OS install was just as easy, installed Windows 7, very smooth install.
Now the fun began, I added an external Rosewill wireless N USB adapter, and that install went fine, but when it came to the RocketFish bluetooth adapter, that was not so much fun. It took me quite a while to find out that it wasn't going to be possible to use the normal drivers for it (even via download from the site), but after some time spent I got the built in bluetooth drivers for Windows 7 to work. The remote that came with one of the Hauppauge 2250s installed without a hitch or any software, it just worked.
Setting up the Windows Media Center was a challenge, only because the guide site must have been down, because I spent a long time working on the set up, and could not get guide data for the life of me. I came back to it the next morning and went through the setup again and it got the data just fine, but I did spend a couple hours trying to figure it out.
I have it outputting at 1080p resolution to the TV, but I had to increase the size of the things on the screen to the large setting, due to us sitting across a big room from the TV.
I have not yet gotten around to trying to set up my Logitech Harmony 880 for it yet, because I'm not sure if it'll be a challenge or not, so right now I have 2 remotes, but I'll get around to it as soon as I get a chance, but the system performance is great, and everything seems to be working very well. I'm an old time Beyond TV user, I'm just trying out Windows Media Center, there are things I like, and things I don't, so I'm not sure if I'll stick with it or not, but for now it does what I need. But this build is VERY VERY quiet and that makes me very happy, my wife loves it as well.
So that's my new HTPC in a nutshell, with a few pictures to boot. I hope you enjoyed the read.
@soddarkangel
http://www.twitter.com/soddarkangel
Feel free to ask questions in the comments below. Thanks to sodarkangel for sharing! If you'd like to have your setup or media gadgets highlighted, read the guidelines for submission here.
Most if not all readers of GeekTonic love their media gadgets. And many of you have some a lot of them. To give you an opportunity to share with everyone your collection of media tech and home theater setups, I've decided to start a new series where you, the reader are the star.
Starting today, GeekTonic will be running a "share your setup" series to include the following types of write-ups:
You may be asking: What do I get for my efforts? Well I have a few reasons for you:
Entering and sharing is easy.
Photos - the GeekTonic Flickr Group: First off, photos work best for this sort of thing. Either use your existing flickr account or sign up for a free one. Then join the GeekTonic Flickr Group here. Once you're a member of the flickr group, submit the photos into the GeekTonic Flickr Group. Ideally put a short description or at least a title for each photo so we know what it is. If your anti-flickr I'll still accept your photos - just send me a note so you can e-mail them to me or send me a link to where you have them available. Send me a note once you've submitted photo/s to the flickr group so I have a way to contact you.
Write-Ups - Send me a note: If you have a little something you'd like to say about the photos you've submitted, or tell me more about the setup or gadget, or even how you use it just send that to me in an e-mail. I use contactify to week out the spammers so send me a note first and I'll respond with my e-mail.
So get out those cameras and start photographing your stuff. We're anxious to see all of that cool gadget goodness you have to share! I already have submissions for the first two in the series so you can get an idea of what I'm looking for. Don't hesitate to start submitting your photos to the GeekTonic flickr group now.
They giveth, they taketh away. Not happy with just ticking off all Boxee users, Hulu has moved on to blocking the next software media player, MyMediaPlayer using Hulu to stream online video content.
MyMediaPlayer is an Adobe Air app that gives it's users the ability to view Hulu.com's library of TV shows and movies in fullscreen TV mode. MyMediaPlayer is open source and leaves all Hulu content and ads intact. It was really a simple alternative interface to view Hulu content.
Unfortunately Hulu seems to be on the warpath to scratch out any third party apps that use Hulu content to allow the viewing of that content from anything other than the stadard Hulu Browser.
The developer of MyMediaPlayer wrote an open letter to Hulu outlining the reasons Hulu should reconsider the rejection of his player. Boxee who recently was asked to block the Hulu content on their HTPC app are also appealing to Hulu, but I seriously doubt we'll see any progress on this front as Hulu seems to have been "forced into a box" by it's owners, CBS and Fox who are protecting their cable network business model (supposedly provides over 49% of their revenues).
So for now, I would put little hope in seeing Hulu survive in any third party app going forward. That will affect many Media Center users, SageTV users, XBMC users, DivX Connected users and even PlayOn. It looks like its just a matter of time before the backward-looking media execs kill off any progress made on the Hulu App front. Sad, but true.
After reports began to surface yesterday that Blockbuster was hiring an outside firm to discuss the possibility of a bankruptcy filing, their stock plummeted over 75% before the market close. Later that day, reports (CNN Money) came out that Blockbuster hired Kirkland & Ellis for "assistance with our ongoing finance and capital raising initiative" according to the Blockbuster spokesperson Karen Raskopf.
My Take:
Having experienced a company going through bankruptcy I see this as the standard "we are not filing for bankruptcy" speech that really means: "we don't want to file for bankruptcy and are looking for a way out, but are at the point where we have to plan for it in case the banks don't give us another lifeline (loan covenant revisions). All bankruptcy firms such as Kirkland & Ellis look for alternatives to Bankruptcy, but you don't hire them unless you're on the brink.
Blockbuster has become mostly irrelevant in the movie rental market with steep competition from Netflix, Redbox and other movie vending services, and even online streaming. In the current market environment, I'm betting that Blockbuster has very little time left before bankruptcy. Time will tell.
Vidabox announced the launch of the new RoomClient: SE system, an entry-level, Windows Vista-based media server. The new media server is targeted at the entry-level customer with a starting price of $2,248.
Since I just reviewed the VidaBox Media Center keyboard, this one caught my eye. VidaBox focuses on the high-end customer and installer market, but have added this server/extender device as a less expensive option (for that market).
From the Press Release:
Starting at $2248, the RoomClient:SE stores movies, pictures, music, and more for on-demand access via an on-screen, remote controlled interface. Cover art from movies and music titles are automatically downloaded along with every archival. Complete with 1080p upscaling and full Dolby Digital and DTS support, it's designed to deliver a stunning entertainment experience without compromising quality.
The RoomClient: SE server is basically a pre-packaged Home Theater PC based on Vista Media Center with the following specs:
The RoomClient: SE system is targeted at the integrator and tech-savvy customer as an entry-level HTPC in a compact, but powerful package. For the person who wants to buy the pre-configured all-in-one Media Center package this device is certainly worth a look. The box is small (smaller than a shoebox) but looks great. I sent a note to the VidaBox rep to see if there is an upgrade path for Windows 7.